


Time

by morningsound15



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, Huntington's Disease, Marriage Proposal, One Shot, sorry it's not really a happy one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21992938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningsound15/pseuds/morningsound15
Summary: Remy's dying. Allison's always had a soft spot for beautiful people set to die tragically young.
Relationships: Allison Cameron/Remy "Thirteen" Hadley
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	Time

**Author's Note:**

> Watched like 8 episodes of House today! Crazy.

They’ve been together eighteen months when Allison drops down onto one knee inside Thirteen’s apartment. Eighteen months is longer than any relationship Thirteen has ever had, which would seem promising, if it weren’t also a relationship with a woman who’s had at least 3 horrifically doomed relationships and 2 horrifically doomed marriages. Not exactly great odds, from where Thirteen is sitting.

“I knew about lesbians moving quick but I didn’t think it extended to bisexuals, too.”

Allison laughs at that, a little teary-eyed. Thirteen looks back at her, but she doesn’t smile. “What do you say?” Allison asks, slipping the box into Thirteen’s hands. She looks down at it, framed against her pale palms and her pale, naked thighs. Her feet dangle over the side of the bed and they’re both practically naked, only in a pair of long t-shirts. It’s eight in the morning. It’s way too early for this shit.

There’s a simple gold ring inside the black velvet box; perfectly subtle, not at all ostentatious — exactly the kind of thing Thirteen would have picked out for herself, if she ever had an aneurism and decided to go shopping for engagement rings for herself.

“You know I’m not dying for a couple years, right?” Thirteen blinks up, and Allison’s smile has slipped into something more like a frown. “If you wanted to swoop in and marry me, give me my last dying wish or last fleeting happiness or whatever, you could have waited a little longer. It’s a little morbid, this early on.”

Allison blinks at her. “You think that’s why I want to marry you?”

“Isn’t it?”

“ _Remy,_ ” she says, making Thirteen shift uncomfortably. She’s never loved being called by her name, and will only really tolerate Allison doing it, and only because she’d let Allison do just about anything, if she looked at her with those big soulful eyes and her trembling lower lip. “I _love_ you,” Allison says, still on one knee, and Thirteen shifts away from her.

“Sure,” she says, “You love me. Of course you love me. You love everyone who’s hurt and broken, everything that’s dying. That’s your whole thing. It’s why you’re in love with House, it’s why you married your first husband. Chase is still kind of a mystery to me, but I’m sure there was something broken in him you wanted to fix. Hell, you probably would have married Kutner, too, if he hadn’t killed himself before anyone figured out he was going to.”

Allison looks like she’s been slapped. Thirteen feels remorseful, for a moment, before a tremor takes over her body again and she fumbles with the ring box, almost dropping it. She forces the guilt to the side. She’s dying. She doesn’t owe anyone niceness or her deference. She doesn’t owe Allison her body, or her vows, or a white wedding dress and a nice, simple ceremony. Not when she knows she’s got an expiration date.

She shoves the box back into Allison’s stunned hands and stands, her legs a little wobbly. Whether that’s the disease or the surprise proposal, it’s a little difficult to say. She feels angry, irritable. Irritability is another classic early symptom; Allison will know that, and won’t hold it against her.

That just makes Thirteen feel worse.

She walks, slow and stiff, away from the bedroom and towards the kitchen. Allison follows behind her, now quiet and subdued. Thirteen looks for a cane nearby and, finding none, huffs and does her best without.

“Here, Remy—” Allison tries to take her arm, always helpful, and yesterday Thirteen might have enjoyed the attention, the closeness, the help, but this morning she hates it, feels sick from it. She yanks her arm away and stumbles into the counter. She gasps as the sharp marble connects with her hip. She’ll have a terrible bruise there, later, but right now she doesn’t care.

Allison is still looking at her, with that horrible tragic expression of hers, eyes dewy and expression helpless.

Thirteen feels sick, again, but worse.

She can see it like through a thick fog. Her, in a hospital bed, struggling to breathe and eat and shit and move. Allison, always with an optimistic smile, always holding her hand, always hiding her worry. That same face of helplessness as Thirteen slowly, painfully dies.

(Allison wouldn’t put her out of her misery. She isn’t the type. She’s kind, unbearably so, but she has a stupid moral code that Thirteen usually finds admirable, but which she anticipates would only cause trouble in the future. Kindness only goes so far; at some point that kindness becomes cruelty, and Thirteen is petrified of it.)

(What would be the point in marrying a doctor if she wouldn’t be willing to help you commit suicide, once you’re so far gone you can’t recognize yourself, care for yourself, walk or lift your head or talk to her, love her?)

“I’m not going to marry you just because you want me to,” Thirteen snaps. Allison blinks, the helpless expression disappearing.

“Okay,” she says, carefully measured. “We don’t have to get married. I’m sorry. I… thought you wanted to.” Allison takes a shaking breath. “I can move my stuff out in the morning. Just let me call my sister, I’m sure she’ll—”

A new kind of terror grips her, and Thirteen grabs her arm tight. “Stop,” she says, aware of her own hypocrisy. “I’m not breaking up with you.”

(Thirteen is cruel, in her own way. Cruel and selfish. It would be a kindness to let Allison leave. To let her think that she isn’t loved, that Thirteen doesn’t love her, that she doesn’t want her to stay with her through the bitter end, that she doesn’t want to die by her side. It would be a kindness to pretend that she isn’t horrified of being alone.)

(Thirteen has never pretended to be kind.)

“You aren’t?”

“I don’t want to _marry_ you, Allison. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you.”

They’re standing in their shared kitchen barefoot and without any pants. Thirteen is leaning heavily against the counter (it’s always hardest for her early in the morning, before she’s had time to warm up, when her muscles are still tight and tired from sleep). Allison’s arm is in her hand and she doesn’t move away.

“I’m confused,” Allison says, fairly.

Thirteen sighs. “If I married you… if we got married in a couple months, or next year…” She pushes a hand through her hair, frustrated that she can’t explain properly. “I already have a death warrant. I’m not signing you on to be a part of that.”

“If you think I’m going to _leave_ you just because—”

“No.” She sighs. “You’re not going to leave me. You’re _never_ going to leave me. I know you won’t; you aren’t the type to leave your lover dying alone in her hospital bed.” Allison opens her mouth, as if to argue, but Thirteen doesn’t give her the chance, because what she’s saying is _right_ and it’s _fair._ Allison would never let her die alone. She’s too kind for that. “I’m not letting you lose another spouse, Allison,” Thirteen says with finality. She sinks down into a chair, her fingers pinching at the bridge of her nose. “And I’m not letting you make me your wife out of _pity_.”

“It’s not _pity._ I’m in love with you. I want to—”

“Spend the rest of your life with me? Or just spend the rest of _my_ life with me?” She doesn’t have an answer for that. “I have this disease, and it’s going to take me some day soon. I can’t let you… I won’t _force_ you to be a part of that. You deserve some kind of freedom, from me. From this future. I’m stuck in it but you don’t have to be.”

“I won’t—”

“I know you won’t leave me today. You might not leave me tomorrow, either, or next month, or even next year. You might never leave me. You might sit by my side and watch me die for the next five to ten years, and you might be happy to do it. Or you might hate me for it.” She looks up, hates the wetness she can feel on her cheeks, hates the way she’s already crying, hates the way she can’t seem to stop. “Please, just promise me that if you start to hate me you’ll leave.”

Allison kneels on the floor at her feet. She rests her head on Thirteen’s knees, her chin sharp and digging. She kisses her knee caps, wraps her hands loosely around her ankles, her thumbs rubbing. It’s soothing. Thirteen can’t help but deflate a little. “We don’t have to get married,” Allison whispers, kissing her thighs this time. “Not if you don’t want to. But please don’t pretend that you’re doing this all for me. Like it’s some selfless, heroic thing. I’m not going to let you push me away just because you’re afraid that I can’t hack it. That I can’t handle you dying. I _can_ hack it. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Thirteen sags. It’s a long, quiet while before she admits, with her head tilted up so she doesn’t have to see Allison’s expression, “If I marry you it’ll… feel like I’m doing it because I don’t think I’ll have another chance.”

“You don’t want to be with me?” Allison whispers, and Thirteen shakes her head, almost violently.

“Stop asking me that. That’s not what I’m saying. I _do_ want to be with you. But I’ve never been with someone seriously. I haven’t… had the best of luck with relationships. I’ve never been with someone longer than a couple months, until I met you, and… marrying you…” She looks down. Allison looks up at her, expression open. Thirteen reaches out and takes her hands, squeezing tight. “I don’t want our relationship to feel like… I’m not just going to check off all the boxes and hit all the milestones just because that’s what I’m _supposed_ to do. Just because I’m going to be dead in ten years. It would feel like I’m doing it just to do it. Not because of you, or me, or us. I love you. I’m happy with you. I don’t want that to change just because you feel like you’re running out of time.”

“I _am_ running out of time.”

“And we can be in love, and we can spend the time that I have left together, without signing a piece of paper and exchanging rings.” Allison bites her lip. She looks close to tears. Thirteen can’t handle that, she can’t handle her tears. Not on top of everything else. “Please, Allie,” she begs. “It’s too sad. Please.”

“Okay.” Allison stands and takes Thirteen’s face in her hands. Her thumbs brush lightly over her cheeks. “Okay.” When she ducks her head to kiss her her hair falls over their faces, a curtain protecting them against the outside world.

Remy hopes that, if they kiss for long enough, they can stay behind that curtain forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come talk to me on [ tumblr ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/).


End file.
